Paper or plastic? Neither?
October 4, 2007, 8:07 pm
Posted by Joseph A. Komonchak
Today’s Washington Post has a thoroughly discouraging piece about the plastic and paper bags in which we carry our purchases away from the supermarket. It would appear that there is nothing to choose between paper and plastic when it comes to helping the planet. The suggestions at the bottom of the article don’t appear to be alternatives that will appreciably slow the downward spiral.
The European-style mesh string bags are definitely reusable. But I think you’re right — they wouldn’t save the planet.
The statistic that frighten me most is the one that says that the average car sends up more than 2000 pounds of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere *every year*. Given 12 gallons of gas each re-fill, at maybe 60 pounds of gas per gallon — maybe that figure doesn’t lie. With millions of cars on the road, no wonder the Earth’s atmostphere looks dirty now from outer space If you were an astronaut now, you wouldn’t see the beautiful orb that John Glenn saw.
It seems to me the moral theologians should start to talk about these matters in terms of sin, though sin seems to have gone out of style. But there’s an old French saying: God always forgives, nature never does.
I try to re-use both paper and plastic bags, mostly as trash bags. I could be less wasteful, but ultimately I suppose I’m always likely to use plastic bags for kitchen trash.
What about these places where you can offset your carbon footprint or whatever? Do they plant a certain number of trees for you, or what?
My students were interested in the carbon coupon deal Kathy mentions.
The way most of them work is that you give the companies that run these deals a certain amout of money based on the amount of effluence your vehicle releases, which they then invest in alternative energy sources of some sort.
Like you, I reuse packaging as much as possible before recycling it.
Two reuse ideas for cat litter containers and plastic milk jugs (that we go through like water):
Cut the tops off the cat litter containers. They are the EXACT size you need to hold most magazines, papers, etc. They make great organizers for things on shelves, too.
Cut the tops off the gallon milk jugs leaving the handle on. These make handy little tote buckets. My kid took his Legos everywhere for awhile, and it was easy to lug them around in the buckets.
These are also great for a sick room. My son still calls them “barf buckets.” You can rinse and recyle them when they’ve served their p(urp!)ose.
I also save the color tops off the cat litter containers and milk jugs. Wash these up and put them in a “barf bucket” for preschoolers to sort and make into patterns or use them for counting/adding. Kids love ‘em!
I also save bread wrappers, coffee cans (you can’t make pizelles without coffee cans to store ‘em in) and margarine tubs. I also use those foam coffee cups with lids two or three times. You can do the same with water bottles.
No, I’m not saving the planet, but actually it’s kind of fun to try to see what you can do with this stuff.
What distressed me most about the article is that paper is more difficult to recycle than plastic, and there went my argument on behalf of paper on the grounds that you can always grow more trees but plastic comes from a non-renewable source.
Those of us who are denizens of the Upper Left Coast know that cloth and net bags are infinitely better for the land. And, unless you are a real clean freak, they don’t have to be washed all that ofter, particularly if they have other than white coloring.